Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Week of October 17 In Review Part 3 of 4 Everything Else Volume 1

The way I classify everything else it usually ends up being
the biggest stack of books for the week. So I have broken it into two sections.
As you will see I include Vertigo and Before Watchmen with this material. While
published by DC, the books have nothing to do with the DCU.

First up is Before
Watchmen Minutemen #4 (of 6) by Darwyn Cooke. Lee, in his comments on the DC
Preview Review did not see the BW stuff as good as I see it. He is wrong and
especially with Minutemen as it is very good series. Of course it is all
opinion and what works for me may not work for you and Lee is entitled to his
wrong viewpoint. Darwyn Cooke is just a top flight creator. This issue he is
exposing the dark sides of some of the characters and instead of that making
them less it makes them more real. These characters are the predecessors of the
Watchmen. Prior to this series they had paper thin backgrounds and now they are
coming to life. We are reliving those early day via the narration of Hollis the
original Nite Owl. Hollis is a very cool character and maybe the only one who
reflects the standard heroic ideal. He is also sadly in love with Silhouette,
who is a lesbian and can’t return anything more than affection for him.
Silhouette ends up being the focal point of the story as her ouster from the
group fractures the fragile team and her subsequent brutal murder leaves to
some drastic repercussions. This story is both dark and yet at times instead of
the darkness deconstructing the characters it is reflecting some of the heroic
qualities of these people. Silhouette is perhaps the most heroic of all of the
Minutemen.

Next up is American
Vampire Lord of Nightmares #5 (of 5) by Scott Snyder and Dustin Nguyen.
One of the worse announcements coming out of NYCC was the fact that AV will be
on a hiatus soon. Ostensibly to give Scott and Rafael time to work on some
other things and catch up on AV. Personally I think Scott has so much on his
plate with the new Superman book, Batman, Swamp Thing and convention season
that he needed to be able to catch his breath. As his star has risen he becomes
a major draw for all the shows and that has to eat into your time. That was a
long preamble for me to say that this was a great series. Agent Hobbes meets
his end as he manages to take Dracula with him. Agent Book returns to the fold
and is surprised that Hobbes named her of the new head of VMS. It is a harsh
reminder that Vampires may go on forever, but the human players in the drama
will grow old and can die. The American Vampire saga just gets better and
better over time.

Hellblazer #296
by Peter
Milligan and Giuseppe Camuncoli and Stefano Landini was another good
issue. Under Milligan Hellblazer has been well done. This series is approaching
issue #300 and has been blessed with great writers. Milligan’s story of John
finally tracking down his nephew has been mixed with horror, danger and some great
humor moments. The twist is that instead of the bad guy being his nephew it is his
nephew’s de-facto step brother. This forced John to question if his bloodline
was cursed or not. If it is not cursed then the responsibility for his life
falls squarely on his own shoulders. Milligan continues to add to a character
that already has a rich history.

Godzilla The Half Century
War #3 (of 5) by James Stoke has been my favorite surprise
mini-series of the year. I almost passed on it and then picked it up on a whim,
I’m glad I did. The story about Ota and his part in the battle against Godzilla
over the decades is fantastic. In a brilliant piece of storytelling Stoke pulls
the story forward another few years and provides a nice summation of what has
gone before. Seldom have I read an issue #3 in a mini-series that would be an
easy jumping on point for a reader. The art is so detailed that I hope Stokes
has some computer tricks in his bag or else this book takes a lot of time to
draw. Suffice to say this series has all
the monster battles you could want and still delivers some great
characterization with a very good plot line.

The last issue that I’m reviewing for this part is BPRD 1948 #1 (of 5) by Mike Mignola
and John Arcudi
as writers with Max
Fiumara on art and Dave Stewart on colors. Dave Stewart is one of the
industry’s top colorist. I believe all of the BPRD is by him exclusively and
this allows all the books to maintain a similar tone regardless of the artist.
Max’s art is great and has improved from Severed, where it was also well done. I
think he is improving with the page design and flow of the story. The 1940’s
series of BPRD have been a lot of fun as we get to see some of the characters
at different times and revisit characters that are dead in current time. This
issue is setting up the series but gets us deep enough into the story that you
can’t wait for issue #2.

Part 4 is coming at
noon with the exciting reveal of what I thought of the entire week (I so
want a sarcasm font).